Adobe announces CS5 software, NVIDIA announces support

It will be a busy day and week for those of us in the broadcasting business as the 2010 National Association of Broadcasters event takes place in Las Vegas. We expect quite a few interesting announcements, the first of which is coming from Adobe as we speak. If you have been listening to our podcast or have been paying attention to our news, you have likely heard of the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine that was coming in the next iteration of Premiere Pro that adds support for video streams of up 4k (!!) with GPU acceleration. On a personal note, as a consumer of high-res video and a sometimes leery user of Adobe's Production Premium apps, I am looking forward to what Adobe is promising.

Also, NVIDIA is taking time to announce support for the Adobe CS5 suite of tools with their Quadro line of graphics cards. With Quadro, and only with Quadro apparently, you will be able to use an unlimited number HD video streams including DSLR footage in Premiere Pro!

This breakthrough version of Adobe Premiere Pro leverages the parallel processing architecture of NVIDIA GPUs and their hundreds of cores to allow film and video professionals to work unconstrained. Users can now create compelling, multi-layer projects with a virtually limitless number of HD or higher resolution video clips, then apply sophisticated visual effects and color correction, while still being able to view the output instantly.

By utilizing NVIDIA Quadro solutions, productivity is enhanced many times over by eliminating the wait for preview renders any time a change is made, and by being able to view projects at full resolution without skipping frames.

“Adobe CS5 with Quadro graphics is a godsend for production pros,” said Matt Silverman, creative director/partner at San Francisco-based Bonfire and Phoenix Editorial. “When you add NVIDIA GPU acceleration to Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, the performance gains and time savings are enormous. There’s simply no comparison between using CPU acceleration versus GPU acceleration. I can stack more layers and effects without affecting real-time playback, meaning I can be that much more creative in less time.”

A cost-effective NVIDIA Quadro-based workstation with Adobe video software now enables film and video professionals to achieve the performance and creative freedom previously reserved for dedicated edit suite systems costing upwards of $100,000.

“With Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 and the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine, we are redefining the non-linear editing workflow with industry-leading performance acceleration that will deliver big productivity gains for our users,” said Simon Hayhurst, senior director, product management for Digital Video and Audio Group at Adobe. “Performance and fidelity gains coupled with support for a range of NVIDIA cards deliver new capabilities for all professional workflows, enabling users as diverse as post-production studios, corporate videographers, film production, newsrooms – even video hobbyists – to tell their stories easily, with higher impact.”

“If time is money, Adobe Creative Suite users just hit the lottery,” said Andrew Cresci, NVIDIA general manager, vertical market solutions. “Breakthroughs of this nature are rare. With Adobe software running on NVIDIA GPUs, productivity increases, creativity is unconstrained, and creative professionals win.”

Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium, which includes Adobe Photoshop Extended, Adobe After Effects and more, and Adobe Premiere Pro with the new Adobe Mercury Playback Engine that taps into the parallel processing capabilities of NVIDIA GPUs, is fully supported by a range of NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics solutions. Products certified by Adobe for professional use include the Quadro FX 5800, Quadro FX 4800, Quadro FX 4800 for Mac, Quadro FX 3800 and Quadro CX.